Netflix vs. Hulu: Streaming Service Showdown

By
Eric GriffithMay 11, 2018, 5:02 a.m.

If you can only afford one, which video-streaming service is worth your cash, Netflix or Hulu?

It's hard to remember a time before streaming video services were everywhere. It's almost impossible to pick up a device with a screen that doesn't support them, especially the big two: Netflixand Hulu.

Netflix got started in 1997 as a DVD-by-mail service with no late fees. That idea pretty much put movie rental places out of business. In 2007, it started offering streaming content, which has quickly become its core business (and a major source of internet traffic).

As of April 2018, Netflix has 125 million members worldwide, more than 56.71 million of which are in the US (about 3.167 million still got DVDs as of March 31). While movies were once the main reason to watch Netflix, these days it's known for original programming that has inspired many a binge watch. It literally spends billions on original shows and movies.

Hulu started as a similar beast, though centered more on network TV than movies. It launched in 2008, mainly as a syndication engine for its owners, like NBC Universal, and quickly became the go-to service for finding programs from most of the major television networks (minus CBS and The CW) shortly after they aired. It's the second most watched streaming service in the US, according to comScore—behind Netflix.

Hulu is only available in the US (with a knock-off service in Japan; you can't even get it in Canada) and currently boasts 20 million subscribers. That's only one-third of Netflix's US numbers, but good growth since it said it had 12 million subscribers as of 2016.

Hulu's biggest change was the May 2017 jump into live TV, which is actually a completely separate service on par with Sling TV and DirecTV Now, so we're not really considering it here. But if you need a Live TV service without paying for basic cable, Hulu with Live TV is our Editors' Choice.

If you're the type of person who will only subscribe to one streaming video service, how do you pick? We'll look at each service and pick a winner in several categories to determine which service is best.

Price

Hulu used to have a free tier with limited shows and advertising, but killed it in 2016. Now, the price is a flat $7.99 per month for its base content. (Hulu used to call this tier "Hulu Plus," but now it's just Hulu.)

The biggest problem with that base tier is it still shows commercials. If you're okay with that, then enjoy. But for an extra $4 per month, go commercial free. (You can thank Twitter for that one.) That's $11.99 per month for a lot of content sans commercials (with a few exceptions that, due to streaming rights, must show commercials before and after a show.) For that $11.99 per month, you can view Hulu on only one device at a time officially, but typically it'll run on two or three at a time. You can create up to six different profiles per account, and put a Hulu account on hold for up to 12 weeks if you're going to be traveling. (Hulu With Live TV will set you back $39.99 per month.)

Netflix pricing is a little more complicated. With Netflix, you pay to see it on one screen in standard definition (SD) for $7.99 per month, or two screens simultaneously in high definition (HD) for $10.99 a month—there was a $1 price increase in October 2017. That HD part is key—two screens are fine and all, but HD is a necessity on most TVs and computers. SD just doesn't cut it, quality-wise.

You can go to four screens at a time for $13.99 a month (also increased in October, up from $11.99)—and with that Premium plan you also get support for Ultra HD. That's necessary for a 4K TV...as is a pretty rock-solid 25 Megabit per second (Mbps) or higher internet download connection and some specific hardware.

All Netflix tiers are ad-free (beyond it pimping its original content on log-in screens). You get up to five profiles per account, so everyone in the household can have their own "My List" of shows. Also, while Netflix likewise states in its terms of service that users shouldn't share their password, the company is on record saying it doesn't really care about that.

Netflix does not have a live TV option.

WINNER: Netflix

Overall Content Selection

The most important criteria when it comes to picking a video-streaming service is what you can watch.

Netflix used to be all about the movies, going back to its days as a DVD-rental service only. A lot of muck is made about the ever-changing state of the Netflix movie catalog. In the fall of 2016, the number of films in the IMDb Top 250 had dwindled to just 31, or 12 percent. (But guess what? That was still more titles in the IMDb Top 250 than carried by Hulu.) In total, Netflix has decreased its streaming movie list by 2,000 titles since 2010, according to Flixable.

There's a very good reason for that. In the last few years, Netflix has become much more TV-oriented, as most of its original content comes in the form of entire seasons of a television show, usually about 10 to 13 episodes, all of which drop at once for binge viewing. It's a strategy that works well for Netflix, and many of its shows are critical darlings, from Orange is the New Black to newer fare like Stranger Things, Black Mirror, Master of None, and Lost in Space.

Hulu, you would think, would be in a little better position since it's essentially owned by three TV networks, but the individual shows carried by Hulu are not always owned by those networks.

Take The CW shows, for instance. Hulu had a five-year deal to show all CW shows (like Arrow, The Flash, Supernatural, etc.) the next day after air; that contract expired. Now all CW shows go instead to Netflix—but not until a week after the season ends. (Netflix also has the entire backlog of each season of all The CW shows).

Hulu was also the online exclusive carrier of the entire Criterion Collection of 900+ art movies—but as of Nov. 11, 2017, those movies moved to a brand new streaming service called Filmstruck from Turner Classic Movies. Hulu is also frequently missing lots of back seasons of TV shows. When it does have the whole back catalog of a major show—like it does for Family Guy, South Park, or Seinfeld—it makes a big deal out of it. But it's few and far between.

Add-Ons

Add-ons, in this case, are when a streaming service provides access to all the content of a whole other service. To be honest, the best at this is Amazon Video, which lets you add "Amazon Prime Video Channels" with the complete content of HBO, Showtime, Starz, PBS Kids, Cinemax, Sundance Now, CBS All Access, Hallmark, AcornTV, and many others, typically for around $4.99 to $6.99 a month per channel.

Hulu now offers three add-on "channels": HBO, Cinemax, and Showtime. For an extra $8.99 a month, the complete Showtime catalog becomes available via any Hulu interface; Cinemax is $9.99 a month, and HBO costs $14.99 a month (which is the same as paying for separate HBO Now, but the first six months are only $4.99 per month on Hulu). That provides the convenience of not needing a separate app to stream Game of Thrones.

On Showtime, new shows are available the day after they air. It also includes movies and specials that are exclusive to Showtime. Standalone Showtime online is $10.99 per month, so you save $2 if you subscribe via Hulu.

Over on Netflix, there aren't any content add-ons. You could consider the DVD plans an add-on, I suppose. Otherwise, it's one price fits all the content on Netflix.

WINNER: Hulu

Exclusives and Originals

Hulu has some exclusive shows that are cultural phenomena—Seinfeld and South Park—as well as exclusivity on many current network and cable-only shows, like past seasons of Rick and Morty and Fargo.

It's got a handful of modestly great original shows as well: Shut Eye, Chance, Future Man, Casual, and the multi-Emmy-winning The Handmaid's Tale. Seriously, for The Handmaid's Tale alone, it's worth subscribing to Hulu. The coming of Castle Rock, based on tales by Stephen King, in 2018 is also a good sign.

Netflix has a lot of exclusives, sure—it paid a lot to own 83 hours of Friends and reintroduced it to a whole new generation. But what it offers in the way of originals is on another level. It is spending up to $8 billion (with a B) on original content for 2018 alone. Originals get released at an increasingly faster clip, with what seems like new TV shows and stand-up comedy specials every week, with the occasional original movie tossed in.

The list of Netflix Originals is too large to list, but some have become legends, such as GLOW, 13 Reasons Why, Love, The Keepers, One Day at a Time, The Crown, House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Stranger Things, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Master of None, Dear White People, and BoJack Horseman. That's just the standouts.

Hulu has a pretty thorough list of its own supported devices, split by those that support the new Hulu interface that came along to help support Live TV, or the "classic" version. Seriously, try to find a device or operating system that doesn't support either service.

WINNER: Tie

Interface

It's hard to quantify the interface between services like this—they differ from platform to platform, even versus themselves. For example, Hulu.com on a desktop is a very different beast than Hulu on a smart TV.

Netflix tries to make its interface as uniform across platforms as possible. The differences between what it offers on desktop versus Xbox One versus iPhone are honestly negligible: it's a lot of scrolling up and down to see different categories, then left to right to see the offerings in those categories. Hulu on the TV and mobile is honestly quite similar—up/down, left/right.

Netflix offers users a "My List"—a watchlist of all the saved movies and shows you want to watch later (or in perpetuity). It replaces what used to be the "Netflix Queue" from the DVD days; with My List you can watch shows in any order, anytime. If there is any major problem with the My List other than endless side-to-side scrolling, it's that Netflix does nothing to tell you when items on your list (or anywhere else on the service) may be expiring. Netflix doesn't really like to trumpet the fact that it loses items, though it does put out a list of expiring items each month.

When watching video on Netflix, your options are limited to pausing, muting, turning on closed captions, going full screen on a PC, and fast forward or reverse. The FF/R is nothing compared to the control you get with a DVR storing video locally, but what Netflix provides is adequate. You get a series of screens across the bottom showing a thumbnail of scenes providing an approximation of what coming. On a TV, a second button tap on a remote doubles the FF/R (2x), a third jumps it to three times, literally indicated on screen by a "3x."

Hulu's Watchlist should be the same as the My List—click the plus sign on any movie or show to add it to the Watchlist—enhanced with the smarts to show you new episodes of shows as they come available the day after airing.

But seriously, Watchlist is annoying. Sometimes new episodes aren't indicated, sometimes the shows with new episodes are at the bottom of the list instead of floating to the top/front where they are supposed to go. It's especially noticeable on a TV. It's a bit more manageable on the desktop since you can go direct to hulu.com/watchlist. To Hulu's credit, it does list "Expiring soon" movies at the top of that web page.

Worse is that Hulu's FF/R is pure weak-sauce on a TV. Running through a show brings up a thumbnail image that stays static for multiple seconds at a time, so you can miss entire scenes as you fast forward, even when keeping a close eye out. There is no indication if you're going faster with subsequent tapes of the FF or R buttons on a remote (no 2x or 3x on the screen). One thing it does have on the PC is a nice 10-second rewind skip back; on the mobile apps, it's got a 10-second skip band and a 30-second skip forward, which is excellent. But mostly, what Hulu needs, is some uniformity across platforms.

WINNER: Netflix

And the Winner Is

Thanks to some ties, Netflix is the winner in five out of the six categories; Hulu only could win 3 with the ties.

Naturally, this is very subjective: there are plenty of people who would be happy with Hulu alone. Especially if you're willing to pay for live TV services that replace your cable set-top box entirely.

But for now, it's Netflix's world. All the other services are just streaming in it.

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About the Author

Eric narrowly averted a career in food service when he began in tech publishing at Ziff-Davis over 20 years ago. He was on the founding staff of Windows Sources, FamilyPC, and Access Internet Magazine (all defunct, and it's not his fault). He's the author of two novels, BETA TEST ("an unusually lighthearted apocalyptic tale"--Publishers' Weekly) and KALI: THE GHOSTING OF SEPULCHER BAY. He works from his home in Ithaca, NY. See Full Bio